The Fushou Shan Oolong plantation is famous for its high elevation and its government and military connections. It's run by veterans from the Armed forces, and mainly supplies public officials with tea for gifts. It carries a lot of prestige, because it's the plantation that supplies the President's office and all tea drinking generals!

Reputation and quality can be 2 different things. And any plantation faces the same problems with changing weather: some batches turn out better than others. What doesn't change is the soil and quality of the location. Since this is the first time I'm having an Oolong from Fushou Shan, I'm very curious to see how good it is. The silver teapot will help me push the leaves to their limit.

The dry leaves have a fresh color and big size. It looks very even (no sign of mixing). The rolling isn't as tight as that from Da Yu Ling or Lishan leaves. The dry smells are wonderfully light, flowery and almost perfume like (lavender and vetiver). The scents are like a breeze of sunny mountain air!

Let's brew!

There's a trend to more and more mixing of leaves even in high mountain Oolongs. Farmers tend more and more to mix several batches from the same season together. This allows them to make their quality more even and create bigger quantities of one tea. Top quality and average quality mixed together will produce a good tea, but it will lack the purity and character of a specific day's harvest. With this October 10th harvest, we are still using a highly selective approach and liked loved this batch.

The brew shines clear and bright. Excellent transparency. The flower scents are very light and delicate.

Sweet sunshine!

But what impresses even more is the energy of the aftertaste. High mountain is often compared to Champagne, because the taste feels effervescent, sparkling. With this Fushou Shan Oolong, the bubbly feel is similar a top Champagne: very small 'bubbles' and very long persistence of this effervescence. The feeling appears progressively and feels both deep and harmonious. It takes some concentration to experience it. This type of refined aftertaste requires and deserves your full attention.

And then it's bliss.
Pure
bliss.
High mountain relaxation.

A look at this leaf shows how incredibly big the bud is growing (this is a sign of the high altitude of this plantation). This Fushou Shan Oolong is my new gold medalist!

The mouthfeel is very comfortable. The body feels more relaxed and the mind peacefully awake. I'm glad that I had it outside to show you the beauty of this tea. However, it's indoors, in a quiet place, that I enjoyed its delicate energy the most! As usual for this kind of tea, I recommend fewer leaves and longer brewing times!

Monday, October 27, 2014

Drinking tea and focusing on this experience entirely can also be an exercise of creativity. Each time you drink tea, you feel differently and it's an opportunity to express your mood, hope, love with a special setup. It lets you connect to your inner self and it makes you feel good to combine tea and functional beauty.

You can see from my blog that there are rarely 2 Chaxi (2 setups) that are the same. In recent weeks, they have tended to become very beautiful (thanks to the use of kimono belts and the great tea ware I've collected over 10 years). I'm a little bit worried that instead of inspiring you to do follow this direction, you feel it's not possible with the few tea wares you have. Most probably don't have a Chabu.

That's why I have created this simple Chaxi with very simple accessories. The Chabu, the tea cloth, I use below my accessories is simply a dark blue T-shirt! In a second step, I added a tie to give it a more artsy touch. I'm brewing my 'strong' Hung Shui Oolong from Shan Lin Xi in a tall ivory gaiwan. It's the only brewing tool I used for my first years of tea study. It can be emptied in these 3 classic light celadon cups, respecting the Chaozhou gongfu cha rule.

My other items are new uses of common items:
- The waste water is a rice bowl.
- The porcelain plate under the cups is a small plate for cookies/cake.
- The dry tea display plate is the cover of another gaiwan.
- The vase is actually a pottery cup and I'm just using 1 branch of bamboo.

- There's a simple celadon jar, but you could also do without.
- My
tetsubin is still in the picture, but you could place your kettle a
little bit more on the side if it doesn't fit with the rest of your
items.
- My Cha Tuo are 3 dry fallen leaves.

One of the functions of the Cha Tuo is to prevent tea stains. That's the case here. Cha Tuo come in many shapes. Very often, it's like petals and it makes the cup look like a flower. But there are also some that look like leaves and that gave me the idea to use actual leaves!

The Cha Tuo establishes the connection between tea and nature. Also, they remind us of the current fall season. The color match the hue of the Hung Shui Oolong's brew. It feels warm at a time we might feel blue...

The tea tastes so deep and complex, refined and powerful. The leaves open up nicely in the gaiwan. This setup makes it possible to focus completely on the process of brewing and enjoying the tea. Such great tea leaves love this level of attention. They reward the effort and creativity with pleasures that go beyond tea and come close to an art performance.

Tea is for everybody. Let tea inspire your creativity and sense of beauty!

Thursday, October 23, 2014

The compound interest formula is very useful to understand to the price of older 7542 cakes.
The calculation goes like this:
Price in Y years = Price now x (1+ rate of return)^Y

What's interesting with the Menghai 7542 cakes from 1975 to year 2000, is that these puerhs were made with the same recipe, similar know-how in the same factory while the Chinese market was a monopoly managed by the CNNP corporation. (See picture above for the full name). This means that these products are all quite similar and should follow similar aging and pricing patterns.

The second reason that makes the 7542 interesting for puerh drinkers is that the 1970s 7542 are now very highly regarded by collectors. Some see this cake as the next generation green label! (The other cake that enjoys a similar reputation is the 8582 from the mid 1980s: it is seen as the next generation red label). So, this recipe (before year 2000) is a good standard to understand how a raw puerh should taste after a certain time.

Menghai Tea Factory '7542' from 1995/96

The stability of this puerh helps us to calculate the rate of return. Since the cakes are similar, we can assume that the price of a 39 or 34 years old 7542 remains the same over time. (This assumes a 0% inflation rate, which is rather conservative).

- Case 1: for a 1975 '7542', the market price I heard is 10,000 USD.
Let's be conservative and assume that my latest selected 7542 is from 1996 (it could also be 1995). In 21 years, it will be as old as the 1975 '7542'. Now, its price is 399 USD. What will be its rate of return, its annual growth rate to reach the same price as a 7542 from 1975 in 21 years?
10,000 = 399 x (1 + R)^(1996-1975=21)
According to the above formula, this rate is approximately 16.6%!
We can use this rate to calculate backwards also:
Price of a 18 years old '7542' = 399 = Price of a new cake x (1+ rate of return = .166)^18
The answer is that the price of a new cake should be approximately 25 USD.

- Case 2: for a 1980 '7542', I found a recent auction where a tong was sold for 184,000 RMB. Converted to USD, this means that 1 cake costs approximately 4,380 USD. Another lot sold for 195,500 RMB, but let's use the lower figure.
What's the rate of return here if the price of a 34 years old puerh stays the same?
4,380 = 399 x (1 + R)^(1996-1980=16)
Here, the rate of return is approximately 16.1%. We are very close the rate calculated above.

1995/96 '7542' puerh

These rates of return are very similar to the rates I calculated about 80 years old cakes based on previous auctions. Such rates are very high and explain why so many investors are tempted to invest in puerh. As a former financial executive, it's fun to run these numbers to look at tea from a different, purely financial perspective. What's important to remember is that we are looking at the most respected cake (brand) from a certain time. Lesser known and lower quality puerhs don't reach the same prices. During the 1975-2000 era, there were fewer products since there were fewer producers and 1 monopoly that didn't encourage much innovation. The quality and branding issue will be more important for investors for newer puerhs. It's difficult to say now which new puerhs will still be sought after in 20 or 40 years.

The advantage of the 1995/96 '7542' and the 1999 '7542' is that they are most likely to follow the same evolution of the 1975-80 '7542' (also known as 73 qing bing). And I had the opportunity to taste such a 70s '7542' recently! I could feel that the character of this old puerh is similar to my 1990s '7542'. The energy is still superb and it feels so pure and light! The taste has continued to become more refined, while the scents have turned darker and intoxicating while preserving a fresh and energetic feeling. It's very, very good and very few leaves are sufficient to make a great cup.

1970s '7542'

A 40 years old puerh is like a taste of paradise. The astronomical price doesn't seem so far fetched if you are old and rich. Being in my mid 40s, I don't have the luxury to wait 40 years, but 20 years seem OK. That's why now is a good time to purchase this puerh standard before the compound interest prices it higher and higher.

Note: See more pictures of the 95/96 cake in my recent article (in French).

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About Me

My name is Stéphane Erler. I live in Taiwan since 1996 and have been studying tea with Teaparker. He's a worldwide tea expert and author of over 30 tea books. The study of tea isn't just theoretical, but it's also rooted in daily practice. It's a path of continuous improvement. As my brewing technique improves I get access to better teas and better accessories. These things go hand in hand. My blog documents my learning since 2004. And I have set up an online tea boutique with my selection of top quality teas, accessories and tea culture.